Cooking Oil Seen as Source of India School Poisonings

An Indian child who consumed a free Mid-Day Meal at a school in the Saran district of Bihar state lies down on a bed in a ward the Patna Medical College and Hospital in Patna on July 18, 2013. Source: AFP via Getty Images

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- The source of poison that killed 23
schoolchildren last week in the Indian state of Bihar was the
vessel storing cooking oil used to prepare their lunch, an
official said, citing a forensic report released July 20.

Monocrotophos, a highly toxic organophosphate insecticide,
was found in the oil container, the food and the utensil in
which it was cooked, R. Lakshmanan, who runs the mid-day meals
program in the state, said in a telephone interview last night.
The chemical, which the U.S. stopped using in 1988 according to
the website of the Extension Toxicology Network, is produced by
at least 15 manufacturers in the world, according to the
Pesticide Action Network’s website.

“This confirms our suspicion that the oil, or what was
believed to be oil, was the source of poisoning,” Lakshmanan
said in a telephone interview. He didn’t say if the food was
cooked just using the insecticide or contaminated oil.

The deaths of the children further tarnished the reputation
of an 18-year-old government meals program meant to feed the
hungriest children in the poorest corners of India. The plan,
part of a web of polices aimed at easing the malnourishment that
afflicts almost half the country’s children, has been criticized
by the Supreme Court and the comptroller and auditor general for
corruption and inefficiencies.

Stolen Food

Graft has plagued all three of India’s major food aid
programs. A Bloomberg News investigation last year showed how
$14.5 billion in food meant for the poor was stolen from a
rationing system and sold on the black market.

About 50 to 60 children were present, seated on the
building’s concrete floor, as lunch was served on July 16 around
1 p.m., relatives said July 18. Most ate off metal plates, many
of which were strewn around the classroom. The meal had been
cooked just outside on a makeshift stove made of bricks, which
has since been destroyed during protests that followed the
deaths.

A soyabean dish served to the children may have been
prepared using the pesticide as a cooking medium instead of oil,
the Times of India reported, citing sources in the federal human
resources development ministry it didn’t name. The school
principal scolded the students who refused to eat the dish
because of its black color and smell, according to the report.

The condition of three children undergoing treatment in the
Intensive Care Unit of the Patna Medical College hospital had
improved, the hospital said in a bulletin July 20. All the other
children and the school cook were also stable and the patients
were now being fed orally, it said.

‘Gross Negligence’

Lakshmanan, in a separate interview on July 19, said the
tragedy wouldn’t have occurred if rules had been followed and
condemned the “gross negligence” of the school principal in
the village of Dharmasati Gandawan. He rejected charges the
deaths represented a wider government failure.

“There has been a very callous attitude and gross
negligence on the part of the headmistress,” he said in the
provincial capital of Patna. “Our principals have been given
detailed training as recently as April, including instructions
to taste the food before feeding the students.”

Many of the grieving families in Bihar buried their dead
children in the school grounds or in nearby paddy fields to
protest what they said was official indifference to their loss.

Sugarcane Field

Nirmala Kumari, the sister-in-law of the school cook, said
in an interview at her home in the village on July 18 that it
was clear there was something wrong with some of the meal
ingredients as they were being prepared. The school principal
was told of a foul smell and strange color to the food, and was
told lunch shouldn’t be served to the children, Kumari said as
she stared out of the window of her family’s village home. The
cook was overruled.

The principal’s husband had used the same type of
pesticide, found in the deadly meal, on his sugarcane field
about two weeks ago, the Indian Express reported, without saying
where it got the information. Mainly applied against cotton
pests, monocrotophos, is also used on citrus, olives, rice,
maize, sorghum, sugarcane, peanuts and potatoes among other
crops, according to the Pesticide Action Network.

Kitchen Plans

“These kids were being fed sub-standard food. We all know
that as fact in this village,” Dilip Kumar, 20, a student and
resident, said. “This is going on all over Bihar and probably
India.”

A case has been lodged against the principal, local
magistrate in Saran district Manish Sharma said naming her as
Meena Devi. She’s on the run and being sought by police, he
said. A store run by her husband provided the food for the
school meals, local media reported.

In the tragedy’s wake, Bihar’s government will build a
permanent kitchen at each of the 14,000 schools in the province
without one, Lakshmanan said. Schools received just 3.5 rupees
(6 cents) a day to feed each child below 10 years of age, he
said. In Bihar alone, the lunch program feeds 12.5 million
children, according to Lakshmanan.

Rapid economic growth hasn’t dented malnourishment rates,
and more people than ever don’t consume government-recommended
minimums. Some 900 million Indians hover just above starvation
but below well-nourished, according to the latest data
available, up from 472 million in 1983.

Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, has been admonished
by the Supreme Court for its management of the school meal
program. In 2010, the latest data available, the central
government set aside $80 million for food and $73 million to pay
for cooking materials, including the construction of hygienic
sheds and water supplies. The state government managed to spend
only $30 million of that, the planning commission report found.

As parents vowed to keep their children out of school,
Lakshmanan said his government was seeking to reassure them.
“The moral responsibility falls on the government,” he said.
“But this cannot be treated as a systemic failure, it’s one of
human error,” or a crime committed by an individual, he said.